Space Quest Omnipedia
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The Official Guide to Roger Wilco's Space Adventures is an officially authorized guide to the Space Quest series published by Compute Books. The first edition (ISBN 0-87445-237-0) was published in 1991 and covered the first four games in the series; a second version released in 1993 (ISBN 0-87445-281-8) added coverage of Space Quest V. Authorship of the first edition is credited to Jill Champion and Richard C. Leinecker (with assistance from Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe), while only Champion is given credit for the second (it is not known if Mark Crowe gave any assistance for the SQV portions or not).

Background[]

The The Official Guide To Roger Wilco's Space Adventures was a favorite guide of Sierra's and often worked into a number of Expanded Universe materials included in Sierra's magazines (Sierra Magazine/InterAction Magazine, etc). See Roger Wilco's Scrapbook (Playbyte Interviews Roger Wilco) for example. Sections of at least the first edition were included in several issues and said to be Roger Wilco's own recollections. The original book acknowledges both Mark Crow and Scott Murphy (also known as the Two Guys) for their help and cooperation in putting the book together (there are no acknowledgements in the second edition, likely as the Two Guys had very little to do with Space Quest 1 remake, and only one guy worked on Space Quest V). Overall the books more or less sticks strictly to the events, characters, and humor directly from the games themselves (with very little artistic license used), with only a few bits of new material from Roger's perspective.

The book contains extensive (though not entirely explicit) walkthroughs for each game, presented in the form of a narrative account by Roger Wilco himself. Unlike The Space Quest Companion, which was a full novelization of the games from Roger's perspective, the accounts provided in this book are more of an internal running dialogue of Roger's thoughts during his adventures. Both editions of the book also contain an "exclusive interview" with Roger.

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The original edition of the book was advertised in the manual for the Space Quest I: Roger Wilco in the Sarien Encounter remake, and even given away for free as a special offer. Content from the book and/or later edition also appeared in InterAction magazine. The competing The Space Quest Companion was also advertised in InterAction but not utilized directly in other articles (though the latter did influence content in the SQ1VGA hintbook, and the The Space Quest History document).

Differences between the first and second include an all edited version of Space Quest 1 to tie it into Space Quest 1 SCI remake (the original was tied into the original version universe of SQ1AGI). In addition all references to Space Fleet (a rather Star Trek-like designation) are turned to Star Confederation in the second edition to fit with Space Quest V. This mostly effects the adaptations of the interviews, and Space Quest III. Very little changes if any are made to SQ2 and SQ4 novelizations in the second edition.

Contents[]

First Edition[]

  • Acknowledgements
  • Contents
  • Preface
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 1. Sierra and Its Colorful History.
  • Chapter 2. Developing Space Quests I, II, and III.
  • Chapter 3. The Making of Space Quest IV.
  • Chapter 4. An Interview with Roger.
  • Chapter 5. The Sarien Encounter: Where No Janitor Has Gone Before
  • Chapter 6. Vohaul's Revenge: Close Encounters of the Sludge Kind
  • Chapter 7. The Pirates of Pestulon: St. Elmo's Ire
  • Chapter 8. Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers: Lost in Space Quest
  • Appendix
  • Index

Second Edition[]

  • Contents
  • Chapter 1. The Making of Space Quest
  • Chapter 2. Space Quest V: The Crap Continues
  • Chaper 3. Playing Tips
  • Chapter 4. Interviews
The Original Roger Wilco: The Man Behind the Mop
Roger Wilco the Captain: A Man Evolved (Ad Nauseum)

Behind the scenes[]

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